____________________
.
QUEERING LANGSTON
Caribbean Sunrise
—for Langston Hughes
In the beginning—
God has this grand orgasm
Staining Carib gold.
Gulf of Mexico Sailorboy
—for Langston Hughes
Like Hart Crane I take—
The Orizaba back home
But I don’t jump in.
I do gag a lot—
Getting it down below deck
With a cute sailor.
New Orleans
—for Langston Hughes
Goodbye, sailor boy—
Wanna drink some cognac
To bid fair adieux?
“I like beer better”—
He says as we wander down
To the View Carré.
He’s got sailor’s legs—
All weak & wobbly from sea
“It’s solid land, kid.”
We spend the long night—
In a French Quarter hotel
He gets off 3 times.
Water-Front Streets
—for Langston Hughes
New Orleans is big—
Canal Street runs a long way
And life is so gay.
Boys put out to sea—
With beauty between their legs
Plus some dreams like me.
Long Trip
—for Langston Hughes
The sea is a bed—
Of sailorboyz & roses
Rising and falling.
Sleeping in hammocks—
Swinging & swaying all night
The sea is jealous.
Ardella
—for Langston Hughes
You’re like the big sea—
Without the stars way above
In your eyes instead.
We’re sailing deep—
Without dreams & wide-awake
Making love all night.
Pierrot and Pierre
—for Langston Hughes
Pierrot and Pierre—
Were lovers when they were boyz
But they both grew up.
Pierre gets married—
Making Pierrot wonder why
He misses Pierre’s love.
“I’m a simple man”—
Pierre says, slaving away
For his wife and kids.
So Pierrot leaves him—
Gets to know lots of sailors
Way out there at sea.
Pierrot gets to see—
A world of young sailor boyz
And loves every one.
Pierre misses Pierrot—
But thinks Pierrot steep in sin
Way out there at sea.
Pierrot loves the sea—
And loves a slim cabin boy
Since he’s the captain.
A Young Friend
—for Langston Hughes
“I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began—
I loved my friend.”
—Langston Hughes,
“Poem 2,” Collected
Poems of Langston Hughes
I loved my young friend—
So tall, lanky and slender
His virile male charms.
A wise-ass like Puck—
Hung like Ariel the horse
Women loved him bad.
So solid and hard—
His knees got rubbery like
A drunk sailor boy.
That’s when he came by—
To be a “sinner” with me
And go “straight to hell.”
That’s how he got it—
Outta his tortured system
He be preacher’s boy.
He let me have it—
It came hell or high water
The jizzy Scripture.
And then he waited—
For Jesus to strike him blind
But nothing happened.
So we made love and—
Did it again & again
Jesus, he was fine!
Harlem Night Song
—for Langston Hughes
Bruce Nugent so cute—
Van Vechten and all the rest
Excited by him.
When we roam the streets—
Harlem midnights get hopping
Italian boyz!!!
They really love Bruce—
He gets along with Latins
Both young and old.
The moon is shining—
Down on the Harlem rooftops
A band is playing.
Jazz seeps out into—
The wet slick neo-lit streets
Bruce my femme fatale.
Smoke, Lilies and Jade
—for Bruce Nugent
Bruce wants to do—
To do something like Langston
To write or to sing.
Instead he ends up—
Doing Langston Hughes
All night long in bed.
Two Harlem poets—
In Niggeratti Manor
Smoking some reefer.
Wallace Thurman smiles—
“It’s about time,” Wallace says
“Gimme that Black Fire!!!”
The Night Harlem Dies
—for Langston Hughes
Langston wakes me up—
He seems so very strange then
Middle of the night.
Nervous, whispering—
“I think Harlem’s dead tonight”
and then he clams up.
Disconnected thoughts—
How can such a thing be true
We go back to sleep.
The in the morning—
The Stock Market Crash is news
There goes the Twenties.
After 10 years of—
Harlem Renaissance Fast Times
The money done left.
Reefer
—for Bruce Nugent
Blowing smoke-rings high—
One after the other up
To the high ceiling.
Blowing the blue smoke—
From an ivory holder
Jaded with a joint.
Jade and ivory—
My pomegranate juice lips
Pale smoke silver moon.
Harlem days over—
No more stairway to heaven
Pseudo-grandeur gone.
Langston is down there—
Hiding under my bed in
Niggeratti Manor.
Neo-Voodoo
—for Langston Hughes
Zora shines at night—
Her stories from way back when
Voodoo HooDoo girl..
She spends one whole night—
With a rattlesnake tied-flat
To her sleepless back.
Hissing and rattling—
Whenever she moves around
She wants to learn.
Her Teacher teaches her—
Voodoo and folk tales to get
Her in the right place.
His yellow silk shirt—
And smooth black velvet trousers
And a long black cape.
It made her want to—
Invent her own folk tales
To write them like Hughes.
Black Beauty
—for Langston Hughes
He has narrow hips—
Slightly pouty lips with a
Graceful slender neck.
The smooth male contours—
Two gracefully curving legs
Wide erect nostrils.
Mandingo brown eyes—
Looking straight thru everything
Black poppy stem smile.
Beauty closes his eyes—
Why does he look that way
Beauty’s strength so shy?
Red calla lilies—
Nice thick puffy sexy lips
Blue smoke, dancer’s legs.
Langston in Love
—for Langston Hughes
Black poppies, red calla lips—
Down past his muscular hocks
Thighs and nice tight hips.
His black curly hair—
His lithe narrow waist
Flat stomach, Greek nose.
Wide and strong shoulders—
Physique athletic and sleek
It is Black Beauty.
Dark ringed bedroom eyes—
Temperamental nostrils
Beauty’s lips touching mine.
Langston’s temples throb—
His pulse hammers from his wrist
To his fingertips.
Mandingo
—for Langston Hughes
“You want
his pleasure”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
He wants him bad—
From the minute he sees him
What more can I say?
It is a black club—
Full of young men dancing
Big easy dinge dick.
Black Club
—for Langston Hughes
“his seed
dilutes in
your blood”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
Afterwards I can—
Still taste him that skanky way
When I get him off.
Not just a dew-drop—
More like a thick tablespoon
Of crocodile cum.
“He’s only
visible in
the dark”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
I get to see him—
Back in my friend’s apartment
Cute Mandingo kid.
We turn out the light—
All I can smell is his groin
And his damp armpits.
Looking for Langston (1989)
“My fiction
has been
ahead of me”
—Ishmael Reed,
“Distant Cousins,”
Airing Dirty Laundry
They kept it secret—
The Langston Hughes Estate back then
A dark dinge secret.
“Looking for Langston”—
They fought that movie for years
Sacred Harlem closet.
Especially—
George Bass the Executor
Langston’s lover boy.
A secret shocker—
Undressing Harlem’s icons
Oh Lordy, Lordy!!!
The real story of—
The Gay Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes in love.
Hiding Langston in the Closet
“Ishmael Reed,
you aint nothin’
but a gagster
and a con-artist!”
—Ralph Ellison,
“Introduction,”
The Reed Reader
When I read that quote—
Black closetry suddenly
Rears its ugly head.
Like DADT—
Gay desire gets shoved back in
The Negro Closet.
Black academe—
Teaching homophobia
No black gay desires!
The Executor—
Of the Hughes Estate says no
To the Langston film.
George Bass acting as—
Secretary to Langston
Gay? Heaven Forbid!
Colored censorship—
Turns out to be even worse
Than whitey’s version.
No gay poets here!!!—
Just “Cotton-patch” history
As Malcolm X says.
Jizzonia
—for Langston Hughes
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Help poor closet me!
A Harlem harlot—
Giving head to jazz players
Jizzy paradise!
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Niggeratti girl!
Am I just Bad Seed?—
Tainted genealogy?
My lips just too bold?
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Mulatto poet?
Afro-American Fragment
—for Langston Hughes
So long, far away—
Africa not even gone
Memory back then.
Like when I beat off—
A strange un-Negro tongue says
So long, far away.
Are those drums I hear—
My atavistic yearnings
Spluging blood & tears?
Desire
—for Langston Hughes
Desire for us was—
A swift dying double death
Mingling our last breath.
Between us quickly—
The Niggeratti Manor
In a naked room.
Dream Boogie
—for Langston Hughes
I keep hearing it—
That boogie-woogie rumble
Beating off down there.
That gone dream boogie—
When Harlem was hot back then
During the Twenties.
Something happened tho—
A dream deferred came for me
They took it away.
Dream Variation
—for Langston Hughes
Dark be after me—
No more whirling & dancing
Harlem cabarets.
Dark be inside me—
Those old blues have done me in
Can’t do nothin’ tho.
Dark be scaring me—
No more quickie rendezvous
Tender is the night?
Nightmare World
—for Langston Hughes
Yes, I have a dream—
Or rather the dream had me
And it scorned me bad.
A nightmare dream where—
Men cursed the earth & the sea
They cursed each other.
A world where freedom—
Was denied to everyone
Not just the Negro.
Greed & avarice—
Sapped the soul & blighted both
Day & night& dreams.
There wasn’t any—
Black, white, red, brown or yellow
Only wretched slobs.
There wasn’t one pearl—
Of happiness left around
Just long-deferred dreams.
Caribbean Sunrise
—for Langston Hughes
In the beginning—
God has this grand orgasm
Staining Carib gold.
Gulf of Mexico Sailorboy
—for Langston Hughes
Like Hart Crane I take—
The Orizaba back home
But I don’t jump in.
I do gag a lot—
Getting it down below deck
With a cute sailor.
New Orleans
—for Langston Hughes
Goodbye, sailor boy—
Wanna drink some cognac
To bid fair adieux?
“I like beer better”—
He says as we wander down
To the View Carré.
He’s got sailor’s legs—
All weak & wobbly from sea
“It’s solid land, kid.”
We spend the long night—
In a French Quarter hotel
He gets off 3 times.
Water-Front Streets
—for Langston Hughes
New Orleans is big—
Canal Street runs a long way
And life is so gay.
Boys put out to sea—
With beauty between their legs
Plus some dreams like me.
Long Trip
—for Langston Hughes
The sea is a bed—
Of sailorboyz & roses
Rising and falling.
Sleeping in hammocks—
Swinging & swaying all night
The sea is jealous.
Ardella
—for Langston Hughes
You’re like the big sea—
Without the stars way above
In your eyes instead.
We’re sailing deep—
Without dreams & wide-awake
Making love all night.
Pierrot and Pierre
—for Langston Hughes
Pierrot and Pierre—
Were lovers when they were boyz
But they both grew up.
Pierre gets married—
Making Pierrot wonder why
He misses Pierre’s love.
“I’m a simple man”—
Pierre says, slaving away
For his wife and kids.
So Pierrot leaves him—
Gets to know lots of sailors
Way out there at sea.
Pierrot gets to see—
A world of young sailor boyz
And loves every one.
Pierre misses Pierrot—
But thinks Pierrot steep in sin
Way out there at sea.
Pierrot loves the sea—
And loves a slim cabin boy
Since he’s the captain.
A Young Friend
—for Langston Hughes
“I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began—
I loved my friend.”
—Langston Hughes,
“Poem 2,” Collected
Poems of Langston Hughes
I loved my young friend—
So tall, lanky and slender
His virile male charms.
A wise-ass like Puck—
Hung like Ariel the horse
Women loved him bad.
So solid and hard—
His knees got rubbery like
A drunk sailor boy.
That’s when he came by—
To be a “sinner” with me
And go “straight to hell.”
That’s how he got it—
Outta his tortured system
He be preacher’s boy.
He let me have it—
It came hell or high water
The jizzy Scripture.
And then he waited—
For Jesus to strike him blind
But nothing happened.
So we made love and—
Did it again & again
Jesus, he was fine!
Harlem Night Song
—for Langston Hughes
Bruce Nugent so cute—
Van Vechten and all the rest
Excited by him.
When we roam the streets—
Harlem midnights get hopping
Italian boyz!!!
They really love Bruce—
He gets along with Latins
Both young and old.
The moon is shining—
Down on the Harlem rooftops
A band is playing.
Jazz seeps out into—
The wet slick neo-lit streets
Bruce my femme fatale.
Smoke, Lilies and Jade
—for Bruce Nugent
Bruce wants to do—
To do something like Langston
To write or to sing.
Instead he ends up—
Doing Langston Hughes
All night long in bed.
Two Harlem poets—
In Niggeratti Manor
Smoking some reefer.
Wallace Thurman smiles—
“It’s about time,” Wallace says
“Gimme that Black Fire!!!”
The Night Harlem Dies
—for Langston Hughes
Langston wakes me up—
He seems so very strange then
Middle of the night.
Nervous, whispering—
“I think Harlem’s dead tonight”
and then he clams up.
Disconnected thoughts—
How can such a thing be true
We go back to sleep.
The in the morning—
The Stock Market Crash is news
There goes the Twenties.
After 10 years of—
Harlem Renaissance Fast Times
The money done left.
Reefer
—for Bruce Nugent
Blowing smoke-rings high—
One after the other up
To the high ceiling.
Blowing the blue smoke—
From an ivory holder
Jaded with a joint.
Jade and ivory—
My pomegranate juice lips
Pale smoke silver moon.
Harlem days over—
No more stairway to heaven
Pseudo-grandeur gone.
Langston is down there—
Hiding under my bed in
Niggeratti Manor.
Neo-Voodoo
—for Langston Hughes
Zora shines at night—
Her stories from way back when
Voodoo HooDoo girl..
She spends one whole night—
With a rattlesnake tied-flat
To her sleepless back.
Hissing and rattling—
Whenever she moves around
She wants to learn.
Her Teacher teaches her—
Voodoo and folk tales to get
Her in the right place.
His yellow silk shirt—
And smooth black velvet trousers
And a long black cape.
It made her want to—
Invent her own folk tales
To write them like Hughes.
Black Beauty
—for Langston Hughes
He has narrow hips—
Slightly pouty lips with a
Graceful slender neck.
The smooth male contours—
Two gracefully curving legs
Wide erect nostrils.
Mandingo brown eyes—
Looking straight thru everything
Black poppy stem smile.
Beauty closes his eyes—
Why does he look that way
Beauty’s strength so shy?
Red calla lilies—
Nice thick puffy sexy lips
Blue smoke, dancer’s legs.
Langston in Love
—for Langston Hughes
Black poppies, red calla lips—
Down past his muscular hocks
Thighs and nice tight hips.
His black curly hair—
His lithe narrow waist
Flat stomach, Greek nose.
Wide and strong shoulders—
Physique athletic and sleek
It is Black Beauty.
Dark ringed bedroom eyes—
Temperamental nostrils
Beauty’s lips touching mine.
Langston’s temples throb—
His pulse hammers from his wrist
To his fingertips.
Mandingo
—for Langston Hughes
“You want
his pleasure”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
He wants him bad—
From the minute he sees him
What more can I say?
It is a black club—
Full of young men dancing
Big easy dinge dick.
Black Club
—for Langston Hughes
“his seed
dilutes in
your blood”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
Afterwards I can—
Still taste him that skanky way
When I get him off.
Not just a dew-drop—
More like a thick tablespoon
Of crocodile cum.
“He’s only
visible in
the dark”
—Alex Hemphill
“If His Name
Were Mandingo,”
Ceremonies
I get to see him—
Back in my friend’s apartment
Cute Mandingo kid.
We turn out the light—
All I can smell is his groin
And his damp armpits.
Looking for Langston (1989)
“My fiction
has been
ahead of me”
—Ishmael Reed,
“Distant Cousins,”
Airing Dirty Laundry
They kept it secret—
The Langston Hughes Estate back then
A dark dinge secret.
“Looking for Langston”—
They fought that movie for years
Sacred Harlem closet.
Especially—
George Bass the Executor
Langston’s lover boy.
A secret shocker—
Undressing Harlem’s icons
Oh Lordy, Lordy!!!
The real story of—
The Gay Harlem Renaissance
Langston Hughes in love.
Hiding Langston in the Closet
“Ishmael Reed,
you aint nothin’
but a gagster
and a con-artist!”
—Ralph Ellison,
“Introduction,”
The Reed Reader
When I read that quote—
Black closetry suddenly
Rears its ugly head.
Like DADT—
Gay desire gets shoved back in
The Negro Closet.
Black academe—
Teaching homophobia
No black gay desires!
The Executor—
Of the Hughes Estate says no
To the Langston film.
George Bass acting as—
Secretary to Langston
Gay? Heaven Forbid!
Colored censorship—
Turns out to be even worse
Than whitey’s version.
No gay poets here!!!—
Just “Cotton-patch” history
As Malcolm X says.
Jizzonia
—for Langston Hughes
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Help poor closet me!
A Harlem harlot—
Giving head to jazz players
Jizzy paradise!
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Niggeratti girl!
Am I just Bad Seed?—
Tainted genealogy?
My lips just too bold?
Oh, family tree!
Oh, shining spluge of the soul!
Mulatto poet?
Afro-American Fragment
—for Langston Hughes
So long, far away—
Africa not even gone
Memory back then.
Like when I beat off—
A strange un-Negro tongue says
So long, far away.
Are those drums I hear—
My atavistic yearnings
Spluging blood & tears?
Desire
—for Langston Hughes
Desire for us was—
A swift dying double death
Mingling our last breath.
Between us quickly—
The Niggeratti Manor
In a naked room.
Dream Boogie
—for Langston Hughes
I keep hearing it—
That boogie-woogie rumble
Beating off down there.
That gone dream boogie—
When Harlem was hot back then
During the Twenties.
Something happened tho—
A dream deferred came for me
They took it away.
Dream Variation
—for Langston Hughes
Dark be after me—
No more whirling & dancing
Harlem cabarets.
Dark be inside me—
Those old blues have done me in
Can’t do nothin’ tho.
Dark be scaring me—
No more quickie rendezvous
Tender is the night?
Nightmare World
—for Langston Hughes
Yes, I have a dream—
Or rather the dream had me
And it scorned me bad.
A nightmare dream where—
Men cursed the earth & the sea
They cursed each other.
A world where freedom—
Was denied to everyone
Not just the Negro.
Greed & avarice—
Sapped the soul & blighted both
Day & night& dreams.
There wasn’t any—
Black, white, red, brown or yellow
Only wretched slobs.
There wasn’t one pearl—
Of happiness left around
Just long-deferred dreams.
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